About the Video Clip

James Scullin And The GCMG is an episode from the series The Prime Ministers’ National Treasures, produced in 2007.

The Prime Ministers’ National TreasuresAward winning cartoonist and yarn spinner, Warren Brown, reveals the emotional lives of Australian Prime Ministers through 10 objects they used every day or even adored – from Robert Menzies’ home movie camera, to Joseph Lyons’ love letters, Harold Holt’s briefcase and Ben Chifley’s pipe. These treasures reveal the nation’s leaders, as you have never seen them before.

The Prime Ministers’ National Treasures is a Film Australia National Interest Program produced in association with Old Parliament House and the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Curriculum Focus

National Statements of Learning for EnglishYear 9 Speaking and Listening

Students speak and listen through discussions, conversations and oral presentations including meetings, extended presentations, formal and parliamentary-style debates, and group discussions. They analyse and investigate challenging ideas and issues and advance and refute arguments.

Background Information

James Scullin was the manager of a small grocery store who continued to educate himself, and then became a union organiser.

He was elected to Commonwealth Parliament in 1910, lost his seat in 1913, and was re-elected in 1923. He became Australian Labor Party leader in 1928.

Labor won the 1929 election and Scullin became Prime Minister — the first Catholic to do so. Unfortunately, this was also the start of the Depression. One week after Scullin’s electoral victory, the Wall Street stock market crashed, and investors raced to withdraw their investments. Australia depended on foreign loans to support much of its economic activity, so the loss of loan money, together with the need to repay existing debts, and falls in the price of our major agricultural exports, led to huge unemployment as employers had to cut back on their activities.

The new Prime Minister, James Scullin, refused to take up residence in The Lodge. Instead, he offered to rent it out to defray the costs of the Prime Ministership—an act which would be unthinkable today. Scullin had backbone, and even when his mission to appoint an Australian-born Governor-General met with furious opposition from the British Government and Australian public disapproval, he insisted on forwarding the name of only one candidate—Sir Isaac Isaacs. King George V was not amused, but the precedent had been set—in effect the Governor-General was being appointed not by the King but by the Prime Minister— and Isaacs was anointed to the Order of St Michael and St George as Knight Grand Cross (GCMG) and presented with the insignia chain.

James Scullin (1876 -1953) was Prime Minister of Australia from October 1929 to January 1932. The GCMG is held at the National Library of Australia in Canberra.